


Like pieces of a puzzle

by emeraldelm



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, mentions of Quinn/Finn and Quinn/Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25492888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeraldelm/pseuds/emeraldelm
Summary: Quinn is a puzzle that Judy is trying to solve.
Relationships: Rachel Berry/Quinn Fabray
Comments: 2
Kudos: 103





	Like pieces of a puzzle

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!  
> I am not from the USA so I apologize in advance for any words or terms that I got wrong,  
> Thank you. :)

Every Person on the planet is different. Some people are like Lego, you have the instructions and the pieces. You just need to build it. Other people are like jigsaw puzzles. Not those small little puzzles where you have to put the farm animals in the right place but those 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles where you don't know how to actually start. Puzzles provide you with a goal, with the final destination but how do you get there? what does the destination mean?

Judy Fabray asked herself these questions many times.

If you asked her when she found the answers, she could not tell you for her daughter is a jigsaw puzzle but she could only ever grasp a few pieces of the puzzle each year. The first piece that she found was a jumble, a huge messy jumble but it was a start. Each time she finds a new piece, she values it for her daughter is complex and unpredictable. Each time she learns something new. The journey reveals more than the destination.

The first piece was found when little Lucy was 4 years old. Lucy was quiet and subdued much unlike Judy’s other daughter. Even at 4 years old her high level of intelligence was obvious, she would spend hours with her nose in a book - granted they were picture books but still - or sitting outside and staring at the clouds. Nobody could tell what was going on in her mind and nobody understood her. That was how she liked it. This first piece was a multitude of colors breaking through various small and barely there cracks in a wall. Judy was colorblind.

Years passed and pieces collated but Judy could make no sense of them.

Lucy started school,

Lucy was shy,

Lucy didn’t have many friends,

Lucy read every book she could find,

Lucy prayed and prayed begging to be heard,

Lucy gained weight,

Lucy was bullied,

Lucy lost weight,

Lucy got a nose job,

Quinn started high school; Lucy was gone,

Quinn was popular; she still didn’t have many friends,

Quinn read beauty magazines; she hid her intelligence,

Quinn used prayer as an excuse; she hated making out with boys,

Quinn gained weight; she got pregnant,

Quinn was a bully; Judy had heard rumors of how her daughter treated others, especially Rachel Berry,

Quinn had postpartum depression; nobody noticed.

Everything that Quinn did made it more difficult for Judy to understand the pieces that she had gathered because Quinn erased Lucy and when Lucy left so did her pieces.  
Nothing stayed consistent with Quinn; one day she was dating Sam Evans, _a very lovely boy from church who could make beautiful children with Quinnie_ , but the next day Finn Hudson, _a tall boy with less than half of Quinnie’s intelligence but cute nonetheless_ , lay on her couch. Quinn was passionate about cheer leading yet quit the cheerios more times than Judy could count. There were days where Quinn seemed happy but there were also days Judy spent in the Emergency Room after Quinn ‘accidentally’ swallowed too many pills. They went to therapy together and laughed over ice cream but the thin lines were still under Quinn’s wristwatch. Judy took Quinn on shopping sprees buying the weirdest, wildest things including a box of pink hair dye-

_“Mom you should totally buy this, it would look great on you.” Quinn had giggled_

_“Hold on let me see, what is i- oh no QUINNIE! The neighbors will think I’ve had a midlife crisis” She scolded “but you on the other hand, you should definitely get it”_

_“Mom?”_

_Judy grabbed the box ‘cotton candy pink’ and put it in the shopping cart “I think you will look cute. Come on” she said grabbing her daughter’s arm “when we get home I’ll do it for you and we can paint your nails to match!”_

-Some may say Judy was insane for dying her daughters hair such a vibrant color. Judy just wanted to be a better mother and Dr Daniels said that experimenting with different things is very important. So what Quinn looked like a lollipop? She was a happy lollipop, well at least until Shelby returned and all progress was destroyed. Puzzle pieces jumbled.

_Judy unlocked the front door as quietly as possible. At this point in her relationship with Quinn she knew better than to create any kind of disturbance while her daughter was reading. Heaven Forbid. The last thing she wanted was another lecture on the importance of silence for an active imagination or whatever._

_The second the door creaked open, she was hit by the sound of muffled sobs echoing through the house. Heart pounding she ran towards her child’s bedroom. Another thing that Judy had learned about Quinn was that she only cries when her pain is unbearable._

_“Quinnie” she called as she entered the room, her resolve breaking when she saw her Quinnie rocking back and forth on the floor. Tears were streaming down her face and the room had a strong odor of hair dye. Oh. The pink was gone. “Quinnie, what has happened?”_

_“M-mom it’s her.” the young blonde sobbed “sh-shelby is back. It hurts. Make it stop.”_

_She swears that she had never moved so quickly in her life, wrapping her body around her daughter’s and cradling her just like she did whenever the kids had teased her at school. For hours the two of them sat there huddled together, the older whispering words of reassurance and love into the younger’s ear and only receiving incoherent sentences in return. She listened as her daughter cried for her own child and for... Rachel Berry?_

Rachel Berry. Through all of the inconsistencies, Rachel Berry remained consistent. Every single day Judy had to listen to her daughter ramble on about the Jewish girl with the big voice. At first it was only ever insults about the girls appearance and how annoying she was which grew rather tiresome if Judy was being honest. She had no idea what this girl had done to infuriate her daughter so greatly,

_“She stole my boyfriend, Mom.”_

_“Honey, you cheated on him.”_

_“She KISSED him when we were still together actually. He told me so.”_

She gave up listening whenever Quinn would rant about the girl, just smiling and nodding along to what was said. Judy imagined Rachel to be the devil incarnate. No, seriously. She grew to loathe the girl as anyone who was so cruel to her beautiful, fragile daughter was a truly wicked person and no wicked person was worth hearing about. She regrets not listening though, she wishes that she could have pinpointed the day that the insults changed to compliments and words of admiration. She wishes that she had paid attention to her daughter falling in love for the first time.

It’s strange how much you can learn about a person when they are gone. After Quinn had left for Yale, Judy was able to put together more of the puzzle pieces. The daily phone calls with her daughter helped immensely in fact they talked more when Quinn was away than when she lived with her mother. Hours were spent talking about everything and anything. Quinn learned how Judy’s car broke down and when she went to repair it she befriended a man named Burt and how she has ‘Saturday get-togethers’ with her new friends each week. Judy learned about Quinn’s new best friend, Rachel Berry, whom she visited every other weekend and everything - well not everything but she didn’t need to find out about those specific activities - that they were doing together; how much fun they had, jokes they had told each other, movies that they had watched, food they had made and so on. The mother was thankful that her daughter had such a close friend; she never told anyone but her greatest fear was Quinn being alone. For two years she never questioned their friendship or their history but she prayed that God would do everything in his power to never separate the two of them. After all Rachel Berry had always been a piece of Quinn Fabray.

It was Winter break when Judy realized that perhaps she should have questioned their unique relationship.

_Each day Judy would wake up with a smile gracing her face knowing that in the rooms next to her were: the two wonderful girls that she had raised, her slightly uptight son-in-law and her adorable little grandson who brought with him the excitement of Christmas. Not to mention the small brunette woman who spent most nights with her youngest daughter. Giggling could be heard from them for hours on end and Judy marveled at their friendship._

_The weather was harsh so she lay bundled up in blankets on the couch. Her eldest daughter, son-in-law and grandson gone to go see a mall Santa Claus and her youngest daughter intertwined with her best friend on the armchair opposite._

_“So Rachel” she started “I was talking to one of your fathers an-”_

_“You know Rachel’s fathers?” Interrupted Quinn_

_She shook her head at the rudeness of her daughter. “Of course I do Quinnie” at which a snicker arose from Rachel followed by a playful smack from Quinn. “You spent so much time with Rachel that I thought I may as well get to know her fathers.”_

_“A-and you’re okay with that?” the young blonde suddenly looking half her age breathed._

_“Okay with what? Oh Rachel having two fathers?” The two younger girls nodded “ Of course I am. My friend - Burt Hummel- has been teaching me all about the Gays and his son Kurt and the LGBTQ community.” Judy added proudly. “Did I get all the letters right, Rachel? I can’t be sure, it confuses my brain. Anyway like I was saying I was talking to one of your fathers and well we thought that it would be nice if you and your fathers joined us for Christmas. I mean you are Jewish but it would be nice to spend time with friends. What do you say, dear?”_

_“That would be lovely Ms Fa- Judy, thank you.” At that Judy leapt to her feet, explaining to the girls opposite her that there were things that she required from the store and would be gone for about 2 hours due to the poor weather conditions._

_The elder Fabray was so elated to have more people joining her family for Christmas dinner that she had a spring in her step and managed to make it around the store in a record time, picking up all the vegan food that she needed for the recipes that she had downloaded from the google. Wishing the cashier a ‘Merry Christmas’, Judy flew out of the store and loaded her groceries into the trunk of the car happy that she would make it back home sooner than she had thought. Each second she can spend with her daughters is precious._

_Upon arriving home she noticed that there was no light coming out of any of the windows meaning that there may have been a power cut or her daughter had left. Judy twisted the key in the lock of the door hoping that the power had not gone out, it was so cold so without power then they’d have no way to warm themselves. Flicking every light switch, she made her way to the kitchen to deposit the groceries. Thankfully the power had not been lost downstairs however she could also hear voices coming from her daughters bedroom and Quinn never turns the lights out when she is home. It amuses Judy how her 20 year old daughter is still scared of the dark. The woman thought it prudent to check each light in the house just in case there had been any issues regarding fuses or other sciency stuff that she would get Burt to fix._

_Slowly, Judy climbed the stairs and the voices from Quinn’s room grew louder. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying much to her dismay. Wait. Was that a giggle? She loved the sound of laughte- Judy blanched. That definitely did not sound like laughter, that was more like-_

_“Oh my God Rach, yes, yes, yes, FUCK YES, Rachel.”_

_\- a moan._

_Mortified with a face as red as a fire truck, Judy ran back to the car as fast as she could. Yes, Rachel was definitely a huge piece of the puzzle that is Quinn. Her daughter is gay. That was it. That was the missing piece of the puzzle. Everything began to fall into place. Quinn has been so hard for Judy to understand because Quinn has been hiding herself for her whole entire life with only glimpses of color- of a rainbow- shining through the cracks of the walls she built for herself. Judy was no longer colorblind._

_Figuring out the puzzle was difficult. Loving her daughter is not. And she proved that when she returned home many hours later with bags and bags full of rainbow products including a giant sign to stick on her lawn that read ‘Love is Love’. It cost her quite a lot of money and once again her neighbors thought she was insane but her daughter was happy. Who cares about them?_

**Author's Note:**

> I was unsure about this but I had an idea so why not run with it, right?  
> So yeahhhh leave a review if you want, have a nice day and remember that you're valid. :)


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